Zanu PF ally sinking in Malawi polls

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe’s close ally, President Joyce Banda, is heading for defeat in Malawi’s tripartite elections but has alleged serious vote-rigging despite controlling instruments of the state.

A crestfallen Banda, who spoke to journalists for the first time since the polls yesterday, said the elections were marred by “serious irregularities” including vote-rigging and computer-hacking. She demanded an immediate audit of the results.

Banda’s claim came as deputy Local Government minister Godfrey Kamanya committed suicide by shooting himself at his home in the capital, Lilongwe, allegedly as it dawned on him that the elections were lost.

Banda came to power in 2012 following the death of President Bingu waMutharika. Mutharika’s brother, Peter, is favourite to land the presidency in a field of 13 candidates.

Ironically Banda hired shadowy Israeli security company Nikuv International Projects to computerise the country’s home affairs department and supply voter registration cards ahead of the elections, a move widely seen in Malawi as an attempt to rig the elections.

Zimbabwe Independent sources last year claimed Banda sent a Malawian team for attachment to the registrar-general’s Offices which undertook Zimbabwe’s chaotic voter registration exercise and managed the shambolic voters’ roll ahead of the July 31 polls.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission subsequently sent staff and material to Malawi before elections amid protests by opposition parties.

Banda visited Mugabe in April last year ahead of her taking over as Sadc chairperson and was feted as royalty, touring several farms including Mugabe’s Gushungu Dairy after which she pledged to implement some of Zimbabwe’s policies back home.

Banda said irregularities included:
The arrest of presiding officers who were “caught in the act of rigging”;

Some people voting up to three times;

“Serious anomalies” where some candidates won more votes than the number of registered voters;

Discarded and tampered-with ballots, and

Communication devices of some monitors being blocked.

She accused an unnamed party of infiltrating and hacking the Malawi Electoral Commission’s (MEC) vote-counting system.

The MEC should address these concerns by doing a manual audit of the entire process, she said.

“I appeal to all Malawians to continue with their commitment to peaceful co-existence and to remain calm until the Malawi Electoral Commission determines the outcome of the poll results,” said Banda.

However, MEC chairman Maxon Mbendera denied their computer system had been hacked.

“Our electronic counting system has crashed, yes, and last night we migrated to our Plan B — manual counting of the results, so I wonder why the People’s Party (of Banda) is complaining since we have not announced any results yet,” Mbendera said.

COMMENTS

Hope she loses please keep us informed.
Her sister allegedly stole money from Pop icon Madonnas Orphan Project in Malawi and Joyce kicked up a big fuss trying to defend her sister
Sounds like Joyce is a bad loser

Agree ,we must expose all that mislead the people. We need a leadership which is a moral compass in all spheres of our being .ie. in the social front and economic front.
Zanu and the Mdc have failed us .
Zanu is the worst of the devils having presided over 34 years of total destruction of our national being.
People say we will be like Somalia, I say we are already like Somalia. There is warlords everywhere within the Zanu Mafia . They do what ever they want with our lives irrespective of their figurehead Mugabe’s rhetoric .

Mrs Banda deserves to lose the elections because she lacks foresight. How could she become a friend of mugabe who made thousands of malawians in zimbabwe stateless? He labelled them people without totems. Only this week the two sisters to malawian parent were struggling to get zimbabwean passports.

Poor Malawi, Joyce Banda was a disaster, worse was Bingu wa Mutharika before her and I suspect Peter Mutharika will be as bad as his brother. Such a small country that ahs become so corrupt. Not the legacy of Hastings Banda.

Yup; Banda managed to very quietly rumble troop carriers into far off the map villages and deploy his Young Pioneer brigades on sprees of intimidation. But because he was D.O.F (‘Destroyer of the Federation) and could spend hours at official functions reciting the musical scales, his misdemeanors slipped under the radar. Mugabe on the other hand loud mouthed and bad mouthed every leader in the top 8, drew attention to himself, and then cried foul when taken to task. Bob is now desperately trying to clutch back at his shattered fame – he would do well to emulate the Ngwazi and just expire asap. Some, like Banda and Mandela gracefully exited and left a commonly beheld legacy of admiration, despite their closeted skeletons. Mugabe will go, and his last deeds of despotism and senility will be his epitaph.

My fellow Zimbabweans elections in July 2013 were rigged big time through assistance from NIKUV. If one thinks this is not a fact why did ZEC refuse to allow verification of figures announced as results. The Zimbabwean case is unique in that no one has fully challenged the results announced by ZEC. ZEC has not come out clean on how they got the figures they announced as results. Surely if it was an exam result the board announcing any result can use the exam script to defend the grade awarded to a candidate. Why is it ZEC is not willing to do so? MEC has come out clean on how their figures for the result are going to be arrived at. This will give credibility to the winner. The ZANU approach is a botched job on the part of Nikuv hence the egg on our face in the form of poorly received ZimAsset. Haumboziwi kuti ………sei

This possibly how Bob received the tile of Ceremonial Chairman of the Southern African Dictators Club because Joyce if am correct was elected head of this useless organisation at the time. No one in their sane mind would elect someone like Bob never ever when his people are suffering, lack of employment, canot access affordable medical care etc. and he is flying here and there to access first class medical care abroad and when its not for medical treatment he is flying to the Vatican

Lucy has suggested that squabbles within the opposition are not doing our country any favours.
That they, the opposition, learn how to beat the likes of Nikkuv.

Straight away, some people slam into Morgan’s leadership.
How typically Zimbabwean.
We find it difficult to coalesce around a mutually beneficial idea.
More is the pity really because there are contributions full of merit on this board, most of the time.
A “lets hate Tsvangirai and the MDC campaign” is self defeating whilst there is a monster like ZANU strutting its stuff in our country.

Problem is Peter Mutharika Bingu’s brother is actually ZANUPF’s preferred candidate. Banda was never a favorite but she tried to get closer to Bob to get rid of Mutharika and it didnt work. Mutharika will gain from these elections and Bob will be much happier with him than Banda.

just read an article where Pop icon Maddona has attacked Joyce over her attempts to nullify the elections- Maddona claims to have witnessed the depths of CORRUPTION in Joyce’s governement
Joyce apparently has had a long running feud with Maddona
Joyce’s sister Anjipile Mitla-Oponyou was SACKED as HEAD of the singers humanitarian organisation after allegations of financial mismanagement. After the sister gets the sack, Joyce went and give her sister a senior position in the education ministry (typical of Neopotism on the contient). the cashgate scandal is about £60m corruption scandal and AU is wanting to grant Immunity to theiving African Leaders?

Am I surprised! You do know of the reality TV show – it’s in the Big Brother format dreamed up by Mr Orwell. We don’t get to see the contestants showering and that sort of thing, but there still is a lot of under the cover shenanigans and washing of dirty laundry – it’s called ‘Politics’ and it’s aired world wide on all radio and TV stations under the general name of the ‘News’. (We once had an alternative and more relevant personal life to get engaged in.)

Is this a surprise? Free and fair elections can not succeed in the absense of democratic cultural values. Successive post-Independence governments have failed to impart to their citizens the necessary fundamentals of civic responsibility. As a consequence, every election is just another opportunity to cheat, or be cheated.